Retailers seemingly turning things around. Best buy and williamssonoma reporting better than expected results. Keurig Green Mountain. Sell force. Com despite better than expected earnings. We have exciting news. High octane analysis once reserved for elite investors willing to pay armies brought to you through cnbc. Announcing a strategic investment with kensho using the cloud to bring Historical Context front and center. Ceo and cofounder Daniel Nadler will join us live to show you how it works. It will be interesting to see what they bring on to the set. You can get complicated questions answered within seconds, apparently. We look forward to that later in the show. First up, a pair of retailers up sharply. Best buy reporting better than expected Third Quarter results. Comps up, too. Sales trends going into the Holiday Quarter are what they call encouraging. Williamssonoma beating the street with its Third Quarter results helped by improved online sales. Both stocks up 4. 7 . I like some of the title of the reports on williamssonoma. Early visit from santa. Another one, no broken dishes. This is a sign of what is working this season. A lot of things are working. Target, walmart and home depot. I think it will be a good season. So often headlines are grabbed by those not getting it right. Best buy had been talking down what weve been seeing. Weve been seeing Profit Growth mostly on cost cuts. Growing by shrinking the business what we are seeing is sales growth. Revenue rose less than 1 last quarter, but that was after two years of declining. You have the iphone launch in this quarter. They reckon they had a good allotment and that artificially boosted it. This is the key time of year for retailers. Yesterday i spoke with the ceo of qvc. They sell about 8. 6 billion worth of stuff from the tv platform and online. He was the first ceo i heard from who said we are starting to see an impact from lower gas prices. You do wonder in this current environment heading into black friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, that will be beneficial. Lets bring in a guest to analyze this. Our first guest has an underperform rating on best buy. Michael, good morning. Why are you not euphoric with what we had delivered today . You guys nailed it. These guys are growing by shrinking. This is the first positive comp in a year. I think its the third in the last four years. Gross margin down 13 consecutive quarters. Thats not a good thing. Gross margin percentage is down because the mix is down. The mix is down of high margin accessories because they are just not getting the traffic. People are shopping online for batteries. They dont talk about it. You said it. This quarters comp was driven by the iphone 6. Nothing else. Every other category was terrible. Now we are heading into christmas. Target is loaded for bear. They are going to compete. Amazon is going to compete. Walmart is going to compete. Best buy is the guy who is going to lose share to all those guys. Amazon is good night who will take the most share. I think best buy is toast. Their guidance for yearly flat comps crazy talk. Gross margins . Crazy talk. A technical term. What he said in the statement was not about the iphones, our strength in televisions, computing and tablets versus the industry, in addition to our growth in gaming and appliances drove a domestic comparable sales increase. I invite you to look the word disingenuous up in the dictionary. They called out 80 basis points from installment sales of phones. Phones were the driver. Computing included mobile phones. I think they were entirely disingenuous. I think phone sales were up and they chose to ignore that fact. We know iphone sales were up every place. I actually have to start my Holiday Shopping early because i have to send it back to people in another country. I was surprised to go into best buy twice the last ten days and find three items i bought online substantially cheaper at best buy. Thats not what you are saying in your research note. How can it be i find things that are cheaper . Are they cutting the prices on certain items or are people realizing perhaps what they buy online through the algorithms may not be the best buy . They are as price competitive as anybody on big ticket items, appliances, televisions, computers. Look up batteries. They are literally 90 higher for the battery that goes in my calculator. 4. 50 versus 45 cents. Not close. Batteries are not presumably a central product to anybody here. If accessories are 10 of the mix at 60 margin, 600 basis points of 22 margin. Its huge. Accessories matter. If they are down one percentage point that is 60 basis points of margin erosion. Thats been going on the last three consecutive years. They are 13 quarters in a row of margin compression. The rest of it is on price competitiveness. What about 4k tvs . Best buy dominates the 55, 65 inch screen tvs ultrahighdef . I promise you that the day cnbc starts broadcasting in 4k, i will go into best buy and buy their most expensive one. I will do it. You guys arent about to broadcast. Until the broadcast standard goes there, nobody is buying one except crazy rich people. Unfortunately you hang out with a lot of crazy rich people. Speak for yourself. Is that unfortunately or fortunately . Okay. Michael, thank you very much. Thank you. Keurig Green Mountain reporting profit 90 cents a share. Revenues came in above consensus. Below what analysts were looking for. There was disappointment in the share reaction to the fact the cfo was going to be stepping down. She will stay onboard until a successor is named. This is the best performer in the s p 500 for 2014. Still . Still. And over the past 12 months. People look at catalysts. Theyve been adding competitors. People were worried the patents would expire and competitors would replicate the machine. Kraft and others are partnering with keurig to go in. Thats a driver of this amazing outperformance. They said the new cold machines are out next fall. End of next year. If they have 20 Million People already have the hot cup maker, how many will buy the cold . Goldman sachs says the market is four to five times bigger. They are among the most bullish on this name. You have to wonder because now its getting priced to about 40 times earnings. There is a premium in this stock, for sure. Confounding shorts. Shares of sales force falling in the premarket despite better than expected quarterly earnings. The revenue forecast next year falling short of estimates due to the impact of the strong dollar, not the First Company that said that this quarter. Probably not the last either. No. The currency problems. What do they have about 20 , 30 revenues overseas . The issue i read with Analyst Reports this morning is that its getting so big that its harder to drive revenue. That was one of the points. In terms of the expansion, its gone into so many different areas in the clouds. The dollar leads to a big discussion on macrodata. You couldnt ask for a more crystallized view of what is different about the united states. Our data today relatively strong compared to what the euro zone is printing, compared to what japan is printing. China. China, sixmonth low on pmi, back to 50. Youve got 118 yen. I was waiting for you to mention that. It was a huge move. This is a new sevenyear low for the japanese yen and high for the u. S. Dollar. It makes our assets more attractive. Dont mock me. This is a huge deal. I love the way you get off on dollar yen. They are not worried. That was a green light for dollar bulls to keep buying the u. S. Dollar. The point you were making about europe. Pmis came out in europe. Half the euro zone is france and germany. Within manufacturing, the french Manufacturing Sector continues to contract. Germany stalled. That means government, southern debt qe is on the table. Citi suggesting january 22. Unbelievable numbers. When we come back this morning, alibaba debuting its firstever bond today. Jack ma calling some consumers greedy. Another look at the premarket. If the dow falls today, its the first twoday loss in a month. In a world thats changing faster than ever, we believe outshining the competition tomorrow quires challenging your Business Inside and out today. At cognizant, we help forwardlooking Companies Run better and run different to give your customers every reason to keep looking for you. So if youre ready to see opportunities and see them through, we say lets get to work. Because the future belongs to those who challenge the present. Dont believe it has yet fully occurred. They are pricing that out. Not a surprise here. Going to help refinance and establish them in the Capital Markets on the debt side of the equation, not just the equity side where theyve been well established with the largest ipo of all time. This coming after i spoke to him last week. I told jack ma, dont talk to anybody for a while. Lay low. Youre tired. Not that happy. Sure, after he talked to you. Exactly. Now youre good. Apparently he just keeps wanting to talk. Hes still out there talking about a lot of different things. And their expansion plans. I am hearing from hedge funds focused to an extent on yahoo they are long yahoo and shorting alibaba as a hedge. When we will hear from yahoo or construct a taxefficient vehicle to sell the remaining and very significant 16 stake in alibaba. The chart we showed doesnt do it justice. Still up 60 from the ipo. It priced at 68. The chart shows it from the close on day one. He still clearly feels the pressure of the stock price move, suggesting to some alibaba faces its most dangerous moment now. Concerned that some of the staff may get carried away, become complacent the way its enriched them. A man who feels personal pressure given the structure of the company as well. Yeah. I think that came through in our conversations roughly a week ago in terms of that height level of pressure he does feel to a certain extent as chairman of this company. Setting the broader strategic mandate, if you will. Its funny in spending time at alibaba and trying to get a sense how it all works there, its not as typical u. S. Company with the chairman and ceo. Their ceo jonathan le wefrn. It hasnt kept american investors away. This bond deal is the largest dollar bond sale and will test the u. S. Strong corporate demand for Chinese Company debt. What is going back looking how its rated. S p and fitz rate it 8 plus. One notch above amazon and one notch below ebay. It reflects alibabas position in the chinese market. What have you been hearing in terms of Investment Grade overall lately . Things seem to be getting squishy. A little squishy. A lot depends on the rate environment, which we havent seen change right now. We heard from the Federal Reserve yesterday and they are staying pat. They made a convincing case for ending their quantitative easing and talking about how they will communicate to higher Interest Rates. There wasnt a sharp move in the overall treasury market until we have that deflection point. We want to keep a close eye on the fixed income market. High yield garnered attention because spreads had been widening a bit, as well. Some deals have been harder to place. Saying the junk bond bubble may burst. Is it a bubble . He used those words. We do have sad news. Jim cramers father ken cramer passed away early this morning. If you watched this show or mad money over the years, you undoubtedly jim heard about his beloved pop after an eagles win or talking about business. His father was a veteran of world war ii. David, i always say watching them together made me want to be a better parent because what they had together was remarkable. Very close. Of course, you could see the enormous pride ken had in jim. Jim was there yesterday. Obviously, a very difficult period but a welllived life. Absolutely. Our thoughts and prayers are with jim, his sister nan, the cramer family. Ken cramer was 92. You can bring back a lot of things from a trip around the world. But you cant always bring back customer data. Because many customers dont like it when their data moves around. Can i go now . If youre going to do business globally, you need a cloud that can keep your data where it needs to be. Today, theres a new way to work and its made with ibm. 9 1 2 minutes till the opening bell. Lets bring in art cashin. Good morning to you. We had a nice run since those october lows. Is it over . Well, by some cycles today is a change day. So well be interested to see. Theyll certainly get the change at the opening. The soft pmi data around the globe has been hurting markets, particularly in china. Right at the 50 level. Iron ore, copper, a variety of commodities got hit. I think we want to look here on the morning weakness. If they break below 2040 that will be a bit of a problem. The critical area will be 2030. If they break below that it might cause a rethink about how far this rally has to go. People point to the russell, almost 5 off the highs. That is a canary . It is to a degree. This is kind of a weak period for small caps. Well give them a buy for a little bit if they get much weaker, it will be a problem. Obviously, the bad news abroad we talk about an awful lot. You can argue its good news potentially for this economy. It reduces the need to raise Interest Rates. Goldman sachs put a note out that says we could have three years above 3 growth before Interest Rates start to bite. They are talking about only after 2016 do you get serious Interest Rate hikes from the fed. Three years of 3 growth will be a phenomenal extension for a normal cycle, would it not . It would. I would like one year of 3 growth first. We havent been able to achieve that yet. Every time we get up, there is slippage. But for the weather in the first quarter, we would have done that this year. You see whats going on in buffalo . Okay . The weather is always with us. I think we may have a little bit of trouble in the final quarter, too. Post fedewa is the analysis . This morning we had cpi number. Consumer prices ran hotter. The last inflation data ran hotter than expected, too. We do want to keep a look at that. This is a lame duck fomc. Theyve got one more meeting and then there is a new group coming in. They will be more dovish. It will go along simons line they have more time to wait. I still remain baffled as to how they can raise rates when they want to. Theyve got 2. 25 trillion in excess reserves they are keeping on the buy paying 1. 25 . If they want to take rates to 1 , they may have to pay 1 on all those reserves. I know youve been worried about that for a while. Someone charted references to ebola with a chart of the vix. Its almost the same line. Absolutely. That was on the depth of october 15. Ebola was very much a hot issue. That helped this rally greatly. It turned out to be not as con teenage you use as people feared. Well see you soon. Thank you. Art cashin. And the opening bell a few moments away. I dont know my credit score. Thats really important. I mean i dont know my credit score. Dont you want to buy a house. Like, ever . You should probably check out credit karma, its free. Credit . Karma . Free . Credit karma. Really free credit scores. You are watching cnbc squawk on the street live from the Financial Capital of the world. Well get the opening bell in three minutes. A lot of macrodata from around the world. Not all of it good. Not all of it bad either. U. S. Had decent numbers. Retail earnings coming in. We are going to get more in about a half hour, philly fed on one of the heaviest day of the week. It is a busy day. We didnt mention jobless claims. They fell last week by 2,000. 291,000. We continue to see this progress in the labor market with fewer americans filing for unemployment benefits. Interesting to see a couple of upgrades. One from evercore raising its target today. Gopro, premarket is down. Talk about that secondary offering on the way. Some retailers, lb, limited brands, beats by a nickel. Raising their full year but guidance below the street. Still though, comps up five. Not a common occurrence. Dollar tree up 3 , 4 premarket. Quarterly samestore sales growing the most since 2011. It continues. Pretty much better than expected retail environment so far. Though we are not there yet. It doesnt kick off till next week. The big question people are asking, how deep are the promotions going to be this time around. This idea customers are trained on that. Best buy talking about that. The ceo on the Conference Call about how they are taking a more diligent, analytic approach. You are saying you are seeing better prices. Discounting is no surprise to the ceos either. Thats what you stock on the sales and buy in january for the following Holiday Season. Nobody surprised that happened, surely. What does that mean . Everybody likes a good discount. Its interesting walmart finally gave into this idea that they were going to price match after the scamming problems they had. They still narrowed down the list to about 30 or so retailers they were going to match. Best buy, amazon was on that list. There is a low price war going on here. That will pressure margins for investors. Good for the gaming industry. Is it . Theres more playstations out there. David, great stuff from the investor day yesterday. Take away markets from those guys . The markets, i cant say thats the case. Ubc giving an upbeat view of shopping expectations heading into the Holiday Season. There were take aways on the battles that go on. Theres the s p. A look at the opening bell here. Paramount group. Celebrating its ipo which happened yesterday. At the nasdaq qualcomm, supplier of computer chips used in smart phones doing the honors. Best buy turning out to be a smart phone story having pointed to strength in electronics and tablets. Apple will make news. Bundling its beats, Music Streaming Service in 2015 according to our own julia boorst boorstin. Well talk to gene munster in a bit, whether that will be a significant category. Apple is categorizing it on the Balance Sheet as other products, unlike it does with the iphone and tablet. Biggest loser at the open is keurig Green Mountain. The stock is really sunk at